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The team behind Hydra chain has been teasing for some time now that they could make a big announcement and just so this weekend, they dropped the news that a new project would be launched in the Hydra ecosystem. The project that has yet to be named - is going to be a mobile app-based platform for both staking and various DeFi capabillities as well as a HRC-20 token, which means the token will be on the Hydra blockchain. Perhaps most notably, it will also feature its own Crypto Visa card with EUR banking capabillities, where you will be able to access funds while they are working for you in the DeFi echosystem.
Now, that last part immediately made me suspicious. Not in the sense that I would suspect this project is illegitimate, or a scam as long time members from the Hydra develipment team will be involved, and the Hydra team has earned their stripes through consistently building a reliable blockchain infrastructure for the Hydra ecosystem.
No, because I for a fact that most Fin Tech startups, even well funded ones, don't have the slightest idea just how much work it will entail when issuing your own Visa card or MasterCard-card, as most of them believe its as simple as making a deal with respective card company and they will print one for you. But this relies on a missconception as the card companies wont handle many parts of ensuring the payment process has been implemented correctly through deals with vendors, legal obstacles etc. And the reason behind this not being a very simple process is because they are not intended for small businesses.
So for a company that is not only small but also a crypto company, which in itself is a legal mine field, you would figure they have bit off more than they can chew. But after bringing this up with the team behind the project, they assured me that they have members on board that have previous experience launching crypto cards and are familiar with the process. So I suppose anything is in order then. The idea is to have a prepaid card that you are able to buy crypto with simply - similar to Revolut. You will be able to pay your restaurant bill with crypto while the remainder is uninterrupted in staking for instance.
The app will allow you to purchase Hydra directly using fiat from your credit card. If you are familliar with how the process for purchasing Hydra is currently, you will need to purchase a crypto with low transfer fees, such as stellar from another platform such as binance, COINBASE or crypto.com, and then send it to KuCoin. At KUCOIN you then need to trade the crypto for USDT, that you then finally proceed to purchase Hydra with. A pretty extensive process. While the app will still perform these actions in the background for you, the idea is that it will manage everything with just one click for the user from EUR or USD to Hydra.
That alone is a major improvement for the Hydra ecosystem, and I believe its fundamental for the crypto to grow. Right now its quite unobtainable. so for the everyday user to be able to purchase Hydra easily will be a major improvement.
Beyond that the app will offer one-click delegated staking, one-click lending, and one-click liquidity pooling. A feature called leveraged staking will also be introduced, where users will be able to extend their already generous staking income from 55% APY to much more, (although supposedly with increased risk).
In general, I believe this will be beneficial for the Hydra echosystem despite it somewhat goes against the previous direction the Hydra chain has had in accomodating more general "real-world" businesses with crypto integration, such as the crypto-hotel provider LOC or the halal/kosher meat delivery service GoMeat.
